- Title: The Unicorn Girl
- Additional cover text: "Give your mind a ride on the wildest trip in science fiction!"
- Series: Book 2 of the Greenwich Trilogy, or Greenwich Village Trilogy (more below).
- Author: Michael Kurland (1938-present)
- About the author: The book itself states: "Mister Kurland is a thin, tense young man with wire-rimmed glasses and the perpetually frightened look of a rabbit with an invitation to lunch at the Lion's Club. ... He has worked as a wire-stapler, a barrel-staver, a window-washer, a herring-kipperer, a Scotch-tippler and a peck-of-pickled-peppers-picker. This diversified background has given him the wealth of experience which has so far proved totally useless for writing sicence fiction. He is now living and working on a houseboat on the Dhama river in Northern Thibeth, but will soon be moving back to the United States as he finds it hard to concentrate during the six hours a day in which the boat is submerged." According to Wikipedia, Kurland, 86, now lives in San Luis Obispo, California.
- The Dhama river in Northern Thibeth? I think it's safe to say that's made up.
- Cover illustrator: William Hofmann (1924-1995). The back cover misspells his name and states: "Cover: Hoffman"
- Back cover text: "BLIP! Greenwich Village was a model of decorum compared to what went down when BLIP hit the cosmic fan — and scattered all time, space and sanity to the fourteen dimensions. Mike and Chester — fearless hippy explorers of a thousand incredible worlds — find that even their legendary powers are dwarfed by ... THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE UNIVERSE, THE FIRE SNORTING DRAGONETTES, THE MAGIC HASH PIPE, THE LAST UNICORN, THE MEAN METAL TANKS, THE ASSORTED FREAKS AND FUZZ."
- So, it's the MCU multiverse, but for flower children? Yes.
- Publication date: First printing, November 1969
- Publisher: Pyramid Books (X-1990)
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 159
- Cover price: 60 cents
- Dedication: "To my unicorn girl, who will return to me."
- First sentence: "It was a year after the butterflies."
- Last sentence: "Sir Thomas, if you read this, I can be reached through my agent, Seligmann & Collier."
- Random excerpt #1: "Part two: I had a strong reluctance to give up the contents of my pants pockets. After all, you could never tell when a bunch of credit cards and a set of keys to an apartment that didn't even exist in this time line would come in handy."
- Random excerpt #2: "A bored man in an American flag striped suit stood behind the raised ticket stand."
- Random excerpt #3: "When it was over we had learned certain spells and methods that would be of most use to us. How to disappear. How to blip from one place to another (excuse the word blip)."
- Rating on Goodreads: 3.84 stars (out of 5)
- Goodreads review: In 2022, Neil M wrote: "I first read this book when I was 15 and have reread it approximately every ten years since then. It's basically one of my favourite things in the whole world. Replete with dialogue and situations that live forever in the imagination, if you read it when you are young, I suspect it will never leave you."
- Another Goodreads review: In 2017, Normandy wrote: "I just discovered The Unicorn Girl all over again. Lines from it have been in my head for so many decades. And now, now, I remember where they come from. Still, so wonderfully whimsical."
- Rating on Amazon: 4.7 stars (out of 5)
- Amazon review excerpt: In 2022, Michael J. Atkinson wrote: "It starts with the best boy-meets-girl scene ever written. It has some of the most clever writing I've seen. ... The only science fiction book I have ever read with a mathematical appendix. The mysterious dedication. This book is an indescribable pleasure, one to read many times."
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Paperback cover: 1969's "The Unicorn Girl"
Monday, July 8, 2024
Comments from readers while we melt in this summer swelter
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Four years ago today...
Friday, May 24, 2024
A Suspiria/Genesis twin bill?
One ticket please!
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Book cover: "Will Eisner's Gleeful Guide to Occult Cookery"
- Title: Will Eisner's Gleeful Guide to Occult Cookery
- Subtitle: The Saucerer's Apprentice (the first of many, many puns to groan at)
- Additional cover text: "Brimful with tasty, enchanting recipes anyone can make in any average modern kitchen — each carefully selected to be used in casting spells, leveling curses and causing supernatural results in money and sexual affairs!"
- Author and illustrator: Will Eisner (1917-2005), previously featured in a post regarding Will Eisner's Spirit Casebook Of True Haunted Houses And Ghosts.
- Editor: Ivan Klapper
- Recipes by: Judy Mann
- Dimensions: 8½ inches by 11 inches
- Publication date: 1974
- Publisher: Poorhouse Press. According to the Lambiek Comiclopedia, the other books Eisner did with Poorhouse Press in the mid 1970s included The Gleeful Guide to Communicating with Plants to Help Them Grow; Incredible Facts, Amazing Statistics, Monumental Trivia; Living With Astrology; and How To Avoid Death & Taxes ... and Live Forever.
- Format: Paperback
- Original publication: January 1969, by Doubleday & Company
- Pages: 64
- Cover price: $1.95
- Excerpt from the introduction: "OCCULT COOKERY is designed for the middle-of-the-road citizen who has never consciously compounded a curse or cast a spell ... but would like to know how. If you've ever suspected that a strange psychic force was toying with your fate, or yearned to possess the extraordinary power to alter the lives of friends and foes, this book is for YOU! OCCULT COOKERY is dedicated to the adventurous soul who would like to manipulate others. For good or evil. The anem of this magical force is WITCHCRAFT. You've heard of it, of course. But have you ever really believed it existed? ... Much help in this eerie enterprise was supplied by Judith Mann, a young sauceress and a no-nonsense professional caterer. She furnished all the recipes, which have been scrupulously tested for practicality."
- Recipe names: These names, paired with Eisner's illustrations, are the best part of the book. Here's a large sampling: Bookie Bouillon, Miserable Mulligatawny, Adultery Ghoulash, Pox Meat Loaf, Wrack of Lamb, Drop-Dead Duck, Swamp-Bottom Lobster, Evil-Eye Eel, Toad Stool Flounder, Amorous Beef Stroganoff, Intercourse Pheasant, Grapes of Wraith Salad, Forbidden Zucchini, Fornication Fondue, Lust or Bust Soufflé, Gnome Cake, Inhuman Burgers 'n' Beans, Shrimp Psych-Out, Orgasmic Tidbittys, Cream Obscene, Ghastly Cake, Noodle Nut Necromancy, Chicken Caligula, Rigid Cheese Digits, Agony Niblets, Salmon Succubus, Lost Sole Fillets (groan), ESP Tea, Dracula Toddy and Warlock Wine.
- Trigger warnings: The book is absolutely a product of its time, containing some offensive material and often using references to sexual assault for "humor."
- Cranky Amazon review: In 2015, Maine Rose wrote: "Not amusing, not interesting, not a good read — nothing."
- More forgiving Amazon review: In 2019, Oldman437 wrote: "The chapter titles are cute, like 'Magic Charms' or 'Terrible Curses' with recipes for Adultery Ghoulash and Drop-Dead Duck. This book was published in the early '70s, so some of the ingredients are no longer fashionable (e.g. real butter, vermouth, etc.), but each recipe we made was delicious — and that's how I judge a cookbook."
- 3 tablespoons butter
- ½ cup onions, sliced thinly
- 4 tomatoes, peeled and cut in eighths
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons parsley, minced
- 2 lb. broad noodles, cooked and drained
- 1 pint sour cream
- 4 tablespoons grated lemon rind
- 4 tablespoons grated orange rind
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups toasted almonds
- 1 cup white raisins, plumped in hot water
- 3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Sunday evening miscellany
“I was able to actually play some of these amazing medieval instruments. The internal parts — what they call the ‘brain’ — are these incredibly complex pieces of technology. These huge machines, created centuries ago, were tackling the same challenges of synthesis and sampling and sound reproduction that we struggle with today. ... I love the idea that these ancient churches have centuries of sounds that have almost soaked into the walls and the organ pipes. Just looking around those Italian churches, you saw organs that summon up remarkable histories. Some of them have double sets of black keys, so the F sharp and the G flat keys are slightly different — as it would be in natural temperament. Some have keys which play percussion. One church in Comunanza, near the Sibillini mountains, has an organ with a little water tank that enables the organist to make this burbling noise that imitates birdsong. There was another church where Mozart is supposed to have visited and played the organ, so we were all rubbing the keys excitedly! Every church organ on Earth will have years of history embedded in it.”3. I recently stumbled upon the existence of this nine-book 1970s Dracula series by Robert Lory. (And he published all nine books within three years!) Mostly, I think everything about the covers is amazing. Has anyone read these? How are they? A 2022 post on the website Fonts in Use by Florian Hardwig shows the covers in all their glory and indicates that the titles are done in Quaint Roman, a font that dates to 1890.
There are plenty of (spoiler-filled) reviews out there on Amazon, Goodreads, Reddit and various blogs, if you want to know more about the series, which sounds like it's a lot of fun if you don't take it too seriously.
I like the 2011 post on the My Monster Memories blog, which may be in danger of becoming a Lost Corner of the Internet. Frederick writes:
"My grandma's house was a few miles from a small bookstore called Bill's on Ingleside Ave in Macon, GA. As a young teen, when visiting her house on the weekend, I would sometimes walk the distance to look for the latest issue of The Monster Times or other cool magazines. After all, they had a better selection than the closer-to-home drugstore where I usually went. One summer, in 1973, I came upon the first in the Dracula Horror Series titled 'Dracula Returns,' and had read it nearly halfway through on the walk back to her house. It's a wonder I made it without getting run over, but I was pretty good at walking and reading. I still recall exactly where I was in the book at particular points as I walked home, passing under the oaks draped with spanish moss, blowing in the faint breeze."These books are precisely the kind of treasures I go looking for when I have the opportunity to spend an afternoon in a used book store.
4. Finally, enjoy this photo of four cats tucked into a cat bed (from top: Spice, Autumn, Nebula and Bounds, aka Osmond Portifoy) ...
Weird Ramen
Saturday, May 11, 2024
From the readers: Louie Youngkeit, Sunny Wicka, Paul Crockett & more
Today is, according to the internet, World Migratory Bird Day, Archery Day, Hostess CupCake Day, National Windmill Day and Twilight Zone Day (though no one seems to know why May 11 was picked for that last one).
Here on Papergreat, it's a day to share comments from readers.
Saturday's postcard: Whale at Moon Valley Park in Milford, Pa.: Anonymous writes: "My family vacationed several times at Moon Valley Park in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was a wonderful place for children. I loved the 2 bears and the beagle pups that they sold. The Canouses were a wonderful family. Loved walking up to see the 2 waterfalls. We were